Damned Leaf Spot

Sigh. It seems that I get a second year of tomato leaf spot.
At least I think I recognized it earlier this year than last. The
plants still look vibrant. And I know not to get lax about respraying
like I did last year. I had the thought to do a preemptive spraying
of copper sulfate when I set them out. I should have followed through
with that.
Unfortunately we were out of town last week, and I was recovering
from exhaustion for the beginning of the week. Otherwise, I might
have figured it out sooner.
On the up side, I ate the first tomato and first cucumber of the
year yesterday.
I had thinned the cucumber cages to about half the density of last
year, and I'm thinking they may still be too crowded. I had to
weave the vines onto the cages yesterday, since they'd sprawled
about 4 feet instead of climbing.

--
Drew Lawson
"Please understand that we are considerably less interested

That's what my tomato plants look like ! Copper sulphate , you say ? Mine
are pretty bad , look like stems with a few leaves . Gotta get some of that
stuff , I was told it was likely spotted leaf wilt , a viral problem .
Will dusting with sulphur help ?

I don't think sulphur will help with viruses, but I don't know.
I'm mostly familiar with it as a fungicide.
Tomato leaf spot is a fungal problem, with spores splashed from
infected leaves to uninfected, so the problem mostly climbs up as
the plant grows. The copper sulphate worked well on it last year,
but my experience is that it suppresses the spread rather than
killing off the problem. So this year, I will keep spraying for
the rest of the season. What I have is a powder/dust, and I mix
it in a 1500ml hand sprayer.
I'm a tree-hugging sort, but don't mess with my tomatoes.

--
Drew Lawson So risk all or don't risk anything
You can lose all the same

I have a bottle of Spinosad at my right elbow as I sit here ... it's
supposed to control thrips , which are supposedly the vector for this tomato
spotted wilt virus . They were beginning to improve but in the last day or
three seem to have taken a turn for the worse . I was counting on these
tomatoes for a winter's plus supply for sauce and paste .

then you're at least going to get a harvest,
those that are big enough can be set aside in
the garage or someplace and they'll eventually
ripen. not quite as good as vine ripened but
usually acceptable for sauces or ...
we've done that some years when the plants
have dropped their leaves due to blights. i've
never bothered to spray, but mulching to prevent
leaf splash and removing leaves from the lower
part of the plants didn't make any difference.
the challenge was finding enough space to set
them out (on old towels so they'd not rot) in the
garage, but most come through just fine in time.
a few might rot anyways. we'd go through them
once in a while to find them and get them off
the tables.
Ma had the idea that we should set them in the
sun, but that is not a good idea once the tomato
is off the plant. she still does it by setting
them on the window sill... ah well, can't change
habits of some folks sometimes. :)
songbird

Just wanted to comment that their pictures for tomato leaf spot
(Septoria) are very good, exactly what I'm dealing with. I don't
know whether that translates to good quality on all their pages.
It is frustrating that there are so many things that kill tomato
leaves. In retrospect, I've been very lucky that I went so many
years without having a problem.

As are mine. Now that I have the fungus in my garden, it will
probably be a problem for at least several years. I have to get
much better about controlling weeds that can be extra hosts.
I realized while spraying that I probably also need to space the
cages about twice as far apart as I did this year (which is slightly
farther than last year), to reduce how much gets spread between plants.

--
|Drew Lawson | If you're not part of the solution |
| | you're part of the precipitate. |

I did look at it , came away with the same diagnosis . Sometimes a patch
just sucks . I had my squashes/cukes/melons in that patch last year . Lost
almost everything to squash stem root rot , a fungal infection aggravated by
excess rain . Which we had , both last year and this . Sometimes ya gotta
just suck it up and go on .

I have found that another variable is tomato variety, too. Over and
above the specific ones that are wilt-resistant, some are just overly
sensitive to it.
I have found that Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye are highly susceptible to
fungal attack...also to scald and blossom end rot. Damn fine tomatoes
if they make it through, though.
I am growing a lot of different varieties this year, each in large
tubs, each in exactly the same growing medium. The different tubs are
being treated as similarly as one can do under home gardening
conditions, so I really believe some of what I am seeing is variety
based.

I am in northern NJ. Sometimes designated zone 6b, sometimes 7a.
I have been at this a long time and known blight/spot/wilt and the
variations pretty well. I am trying Serenade this year, as it is a
biofungicide, but probably waited too long.
This has been a highly productive, relatively dry year for tomatoes in
the area, with minimal problems that can come from a wet season, and
I will have oodles to use and give away from many other varieties.
I had higher hopes for the Tie Dyes, though. Ah well. I got the
seedlings in LA in April and brought them east.. Next year I will try
them from seed.
Or maybe I will get some from the Lomita Tomato Lady.
http://heirloomtomatoplants.com/

Handy to know. I wonder if that information is out there somewhere? Last
year I decided to just grow Grosse Lisse as the previous year they were my
favourites. However we had a wet season and they lost all their lower leaves
first then the stems rotted. A later crop I put in was too late.
I've never sprayed tomatoes before, just figured if I get a crop then that's
great. However as finances get tighter and mobility more limited I can't
afford to put the effort in for little or no return so will have to learn to
work out what the trouble is (if any) and sort it out this year.
Cheers,

--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy

i would try cherry tomatoes and varieties geared
towards patio growers. as of yet the cherry tomato
variety sweet 100 has been reliable. last year was
our worst for the large tomato harvest, but the
sweet 100s did ok. the plants do get big, but they
flop down if you don't stake them up so you can
work from the side or underneath if you have to.
songbird

Thanks. Most years I grow at least one cherry tomato plant but last year
didn't. I won't make that mistake again. (I have seeds that I've kept from
previous years and have been trying to grow some inside under lights - as
I've been talking about in another thread.)

--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy

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